Four key storylines of EPL Group A

With the battles of IEM Katowice still echoing in recent memory, there are four key storylines to focus on ahead of Group A of ESL Pro League.

Elite LAN Counter-Strike is back on the menu with the beginning of ESL Pro League Season 17, which kicks off with Group A. The new EPL format gives us an environment much closer to that of a knockout competition like IEM Katowice or IEM Cologne, with more high-stakes games and thus a better environment to test the mettle of the teams taking part compared to the previous round robin system.

Group A will host the best team in the world right now, G2, and they will be heavy favourites to not only make it out of their group in first, but also to take the trophy. Beyond that there is plenty of competition for the remaining two playoff berths, with a raft of promising upstarts and ailing household names set for some intense battles. IHC and Eternal Fire are the most interesting challengers, whilst Cloud9 represent the most glaring case of a capable team in danger of missing out.

Group A

Come at the kings, you best not miss

G2 come into ESL Pro League with a very real chance to put together the kind of results that saw FaZe dominate the first half of last year. They have already won the first Big Event of 2023 in dominant fashion, putting together an impressive win streak along the way, and they were so far ahead of the pack at IEM Katowice that it is hard to see anyone catching them in the next events.

Looking at the group that lies ahead of them, it should be plain sailing for Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen and his troops. The strongest potential opponents on paper are Cloud9, fnatic and Outsiders, but the former are yet to show anything of merit with Timur "⁠buster⁠" Tulepov in their ranks and only one of the latter could potentially progress to face G2 in the group upper or lower final. Perhaps the most dangerous opposition then would be one of the underdog teams, like IHC after their run in Katowice or Eternal Fire considering their CCT Central Europe Finals triumph. There are clear holes in this argument however: IHC were heavily reliant on Inferno in Poland, a map G2 may very well be the best in the world on, and Eternal Fire also favour that map as well as Nuke, G2’s other powerhouse map this year.

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G2 may very well find themselves monitoring the other groups of EPL closely, as the most potent potential opposition will likely come from outside their own group. HEROIC are the obvious candidates, and the condition of Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck and Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard will be of particular interest because of their apparent overperformances in Katowice. Natus Vincere, FaZe, Liquid and Vitality will also be on the radar, and seeing how these sides have progressed since doing battle in Poland will be an important step for G2 to ensure they remain ahead of the pack.

At this point, it feels like G2’s most intimidating potential enemy is themselves. The community likes to meme on G2’s historical chokes and failures in grand finals, and everyone remembers Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač’s unfortunate mishap with the Deagle on Nuke against Natus Vincere. With such tendencies lingering in the background there is a sense that G2 need to prove they can be consistent in the long term before true belief sets in, they need to show that this is more than a hot streak of form based on confidence. The European squad will be favourites to secure another trophy and potentially continue their current series win streak. Now they must go and do it.

Far from walking on cloud nine

Cloud9 have much to prove at ESL Pro League. Their opening games with buster at the IEM Katowice Play-In were perfectly fine, a best-of-one win over IHC and a series victory over ENCE, but considering the latter just made a change to their roster, it was nothing to write home about. In the main event it all went wrong as the CIS squad were unceremoniously dumped from the competition after 0-2 losses to Natus Vincere and IHC. Whilst a loss to Natus Vincere is forgivable, being unable to even take a map off IHC, even if the Mongolians have impressed in the last six months, is not.

Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov and Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov are still producing some monstrous performances, which makes it doubly concerning that Cloud9 could not find a way to win in Katowice. They are two of the absolute best players in the world, and so something must be going seriously wrong if they are not enough to take their team to victory against the likes of IHC. Analysts such as Alex "⁠Mauisnake⁠" Ellenberg have raised concerns over the calling of Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov and the map pool looked suspect as well in Poland, with Cloud9 struggling mightily on Inferno in particular.

The element facing the most scrutiny in Cloud9 right now is their latest signing. It may be harsh to judge buster definitively at this early stage of his Cloud9 career, but the initial signs are far from promising. The Kazakh rifler only managed to produce a rating better than 1.00 in one of the eight maps he has played so far, and he has done nothing to convince he is a better fit for the team than Timofey "⁠interz⁠" Yakushin was. Considering the fact Cloud9’s stars are still firing, one has to look towards the other elements of the team for the reasons for their failure in Poland, and so buster will inevitably face judgement for his showings thus far.

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Simply put, Cloud9 need to get their act together sooner rather than later. It has been said many times but the buster move inspired very few people in the community, and with the talent at their disposal Cloud9 should be easily making playoffs of well-attended LAN events like IEM Katowice and this upcoming EPL. In reality, they should be at least in the conversation for titles and they have displayed that potential before — both in the online era and with their victorious IEM Dallas run last year. The pressure is already mounting for Cloud9 and whilst nafany opined on broadcast after their Katowice elimination that they “just need some time,” he may find that time hard to come by should they keep underwhelming.

Can the Turks stoke the fire?

The Turkish superteam has had a turbulent life ever since it was brought together in 2021 under the Eternal Fire banner with roster swaps abound as they chopped and changed in an effort to find a consistent winning formula. The peaks have been promising, with the squad breaking into the top 20 multiple times, but the consistency has been lacking both in terms of results and in terms of the personnel involved.

In 2023 the signs have been fairly promising for the Turks, even if the desired consistency is still out of reach. EPL Conference began the year and with it came three convincing victories, securing this very ESL Pro League berth. Failures in CCT South Europe Series 2, the OMEN WGR Challenge and IEM Rio qualifiers followed, with the team struggling to find victories against stronger tier-two squads like 9INE, HEET and Bad News Eagles.

Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş and co. did manage to hit form again at the right time however, marching through the qualifiers for the BLAST.tv Paris Major Europe RMR and taking the CCT Central Europe Finals trophy. What was incredibly impressive was the fact they secured these two achievements at the same time, playing a mind-boggling amount of Counter-Strike over the period of a few days. Yasin "⁠xfl0ud⁠" Koç referenced how difficult the week was for the team in an interview just after winning the CCT event.

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There is plenty from Eternal Fire’s recent showings to suggest they can continue to build upon their current upswing when they rock up for ESL Pro League, not least their impressive resilience in what was a brutal grand final battle with Bad News Eagles in the CCT Central Europe Finals. They can also take heart from the fact they bounced back from two losses to BNE earlier in that event, displaying an ability to learn from their mistakes and adjust game-to-game.

The excellent form of XANTARES and Ömer "⁠imoRR⁠" Karataş is also a boon, and that firepower alone will likely be enough to overwhelm some of the teams in their group. The flipside is Eternal Fire have shown us streaks of promise before only to fall apart, and keeping the mood up within the camp will be an important part of holding everything together. Now it's time to prove that the internal strife hinted at by the flip-flop roster manoeuvres of the end of 2022 is well behind.

Can Eternal Fire make it out of this group? Of course. They have the firepower needed to get the frags, and they have put together a solid map pool this year that sees them play six of the seven maps, and five of them with positive win rates. The maps they play are beneficial as well, being very proficient on Inferno and Nuke, solid on Overpass, and willing to play Mirage and Anubis.

It feels like a winnable veto is relatively easy to get with such tools at Eternal Fire's disposal. It is likely they will have to utilise these tools in a lower bracket run considering they have G2 in their opening game, but the rest of the teams in the group are certainly beatable. Outsiders’ methodical approach would, at first glance, be Eternal Fire’s biggest potential challenge; Eternal Fire certainly play momentum-based CS at times, and the CIS squad are the antithesis of this approach. In any case this group in particular feels wide open, and taking at least third is an achievable goal for an in-form Eternal Fire.

The Mongolians ride from the east

IHC have been a breath of fresh air in a Counter-Strike scene utterly dominated by European and CIS talent. The Mongolian squad burst onto the international scene last year with back-to-back Major appearances, defeating teams like 00NATION and Renegades in the process. They built upon this promise in spectacular fashion at IEM Katowice, taking the scalps of tier-one stalwarts FURIA and Cloud9 on their way to a thoroughly respectable 9-12th place finish which helped them earn a rise to No. 18 in the world ranking.

What is so compelling about IHC is that they break the mould of previously exciting Asian teams, most notably earlier iterations of the TYLOO roster. Instead of relying on a chaotic and confrontational approach that emphasises individual skill, they adopt an approach more akin to the European style, more controlled and measured with clear protocols and plans in place. Don’t think that means they can’t frag, however. They can. In fact, multiple players seem able to step up and click heads when required, as Sodbayar "⁠Techno⁠" Munkhbold, Tuvshintugs "⁠Annihilation⁠" Nyamdorj, Tengis "⁠sk0R⁠" Batjargal and Garidmagnai "⁠bLitz⁠" Byambasuren all took turns top-fragging on different maps throughout Katowice. Even stand-in Baatarkhuu "⁠Bart4k⁠" Batbold had his moments, and Annihilation showed an uncanny ability to clutch seemingly impossible rounds.

There is room for improvement, however, and as teams will have now had time to study them, IHC matching or bettering their IEM Katowice run will come down to whether or not they have addressed their flaws. There was a definite propensity for the squad to lose the thread of their plans late in rounds at IEM Katowice; individual mistakes cropped up in the form of overpeeks, as did the issue of a shallow map pool. Inferno and Mirage were absolute staples for the Mongolians in Poland, but they were not hugely successful on Mirage, and whilst their Nuke seemed solid, their Overpass and Ancient were severely lacking. Basically Nuke and Inferno are the only maps you could confidently back them on, and two maps do not constitute a map pool.

Securing a playoff berth is not beyond the grasp of IHC. They have shown they can beat teams of the calibre of FURIA and Cloud9, and so they should fear no one in this group outside of G2 and maybe Outsiders. With four spots available for the playoffs, competing with the likes of fnatic, Eternal Fire and the aforementioned Cloud9 should be firmly in the sights of IHC. The Mongolians are coming. Group A better be ready.

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Play at ESL Pro League kicks off with Group A on February 22, with everything to play for. G2 are clear favourites to make it out, but the plethora of teams beyond them will need to fight tooth and nail to secure their own playoff berth. Buckle up, this will be a fascinating group.

Date	Matches
ESL Pro League Season 17
22/02/2023	Outsiders 16:00 IHC	Match
22/02/2023	MIBR 16:00 fnatic	Match
22/02/2023	Cloud9 19:30 Evil Geniuses	Match
22/02/2023	Eternal Fire 19:30 G2	Match